Kamaru Usman has “malicious intent to hurt” Colby Covington

Kamaru Usman has been angling for a fight with Colby Covington for some time. Unfortunately for him, the fight has not yet come to fruition.

Speaking on Monday’s edition of The MMA Hour, Usman explained that, with UFC welterweight champ Tyron Woodley occupied with a UFC 228 title fight with Darren Till, he was hoping he might finally get to fight Covington on November 30.

“Four times I’ve been offered that fight and he said no,” Kamaru Usman said (transcribed by Peter Carroll for MMA Fighting). “They tried to make that fight again for Nov. 30th. They offered me the fight and I said, ‘Absolutely, I will wait for that fight’. They actually offered me RDA for that main event in Brazil that Glover [Teixeira] and Jimi Manuwa just got announced on. I said, ‘Yes, I’m ready, I’ll take the fight’, but he said he was dealing with something…he turned it down or he wasn’t ready to fight.”

“If they had have offered me Covington on Nov. 30th, I would’ve said, ‘Absolutely’. That’s the one guy that I really have malicious intent to hurt inside that cage. Of course, they did offer me that and I did jump on that, but then [Covington] went to the White House and came back and was like, ‘I don’t want that fight’.”

From there, Kamaru Usman went on to criticize Colby Covington for turning down a UFC 228 with Woodley — a decision he feels could come back to haunt him.

“[Covington] talked for a long time about how he wanted a title fight. But then they give him a title fight — Sept. 8 that’s your event — but he comes out and says he’s not ready. You’re not the champ, you’re the interim guy. You’re just a placeholder. The champ is ready to go. He gave you an opportunity and you turned it down, so they went with the next guy, they went with Darren Till.

“Now you have to sit and wait. God forbid, if something happens to the guys that have to fight on Sept. 8 and they have to be out for a while. What does that mean? You’re not going to fight forever until they’re ready? You said you’d be ready in November, [the UFC] offered me the fight in November. I accepted and he says no — once again for the fourth time.”

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